


New Florida

by FishLeather



Series: Bright Futures [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Lesbianism, Sci-Fi, holographs, retrofuturistic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 03:32:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13561863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FishLeather/pseuds/FishLeather
Summary: A future where humanity has fanned out, becoming known for their many vacation resorts and bustling cities, both planetside and free floating. Humid jungle planets with careful wildlife tours, to simple gas-station diners floating a light-week from any planet. Humans have mastered the art... of fun!





	New Florida

     "Mira, should I set this to eggshell, or alabaster?" she asked, rhythmically toggling the color of her holodress back and forth. The click, clock, noise it made was the only evidence I could see that any change was taking place, other than the slight jump or twitch of the digifabric's animation.

     "Seashell, I can't tell the difference," I answered. I pulled on an aqua suit jacket to complete my entirely physical outfit. I never liked feeling naked out of the dormary. What if it was cold at the Loop? Seashell could wear my dashing jacket, and everything'd be fine. Suddenly, the terminal bell dinged. Visitors? I hurried over to the door, and leaned on it to use the peephole just as it dissolved open, sending me stumbling into the delivery man, dropping his bundle of tapes! They split apart upon hitting the steel hallway floor, ribbons of data popping and erupting from multi colored cartridges as the two of us stared.  
I laughed nervously, to which the distraught deliveryman shook his head, taking another look at the cartridge carnage. A magnetic mess. A data disaster--  
     "Dearest, WHAT is all this ruckus?" Seashell demanded, stepping out into the hallway with us, and solidifying the door behind her. She stepped directly onto a pile of magnetic tape that had spilled from one of the larger cartridges.  
     "No!" She erupted. "These were... specially ordered... for... for..."  
     "It's alright, they can be reordered next time tapes are available." I put a hand on Shelly's shoulder, but wondered why she seemed so upset over tapes. Surely she hadn't bought any master copies, and even if it was the equivalent of a large suitcase of clothes, it could be reprinted onto new tapes within a few weeks.  
     "They were for you," she finally said. The delivery man symbolically tugged at his shirt collar, though his fingers went through the mirage of green denim. I waved him off, and he awkwardly walked away, turning a corner out of sight.

After scooping the mess of plastic and tape into a pod, I wrote 'tape carts' on the label and placed it in the transport tube. After closing the tube door, the mess was gone with a woosh, to be recycled. Holding hands, Shelly and I walked out of the dormer building, towards the Loop.  
     "Why did you order me holoclothes," I asked her. "You know I don't like that feeling of nakedness."  
     "They were special, I heard a rumor of a new type, it's different from...this," she answered, gesturing towards her off-white dress. It was opaque, but didn't react to the gentle afternoon breeze.

* * *

 

The smell of fresh fruit filled the air. The first stall we visited was furthest from the crowd, and provided bowls of dark green nuts, roasted. The On the inside, they were the same color as Shelly's dress, and hollow like a gumball. We took a bowl of nuts, and a small card that had the name of the fruit. To me, it looked like a couple of repeating symbols, but to suppliers, they represent the sounds of speech. The stall was unmanned, but leaning to see the double-depth chair behind the counter, apparently it was usually staffed by a quadruped. Crunching the snack, we continued on, and visited a stall with a nonpictoral sign. The beaked stallman turned his head to see us. Tilting his head this way and that, he sized us up. Although I was the one wearing 'real' clothes, that piercing look got under my skin quickly.  
 

     
     Shelly broke the silence. "Your scales are beautiful. Are you from this system natively?" The stallman straightened up, and slowly shook his head. He gestured towards the nonpictoral sign that I had wanted to ask about in the first place, and made an odd click-rattle-click noise. I looked at the sign, and futilely tried to decipher it. It was like trying to communicate with Pheromones beings. I didn't have the nose for that, nor do I have the experience for this.  
     "I'm not a supplier-- neither of us are," I explained to the being. It managed to smirk though it's beak. It turned 180 away from us, and disregarded anything more we tried to say.  
     "Lets go," I advised.  
After a scarce few more stalls, we rounded the bulb of the Loop, and started walking back home as the sun seemed to melt into the horizontal sea. I again took Shelly's hand in mine, but decided to kiss it, cheekily.  
     "Will you ever reach this century, darling," she asked me teasingly. As she wrapped me in an embrace worthy of any wedding's first dance, I answered,  
     "Maybe, if this century will ever reach me," as I turned and put an arm around her, and could smell the minty soap she used this morning unhindered by the mirage of her dress. As we reached the dormer's door, both of us tried to open it at once, and stumbled as it instead opened for someone on the other side.  
  


 


End file.
